


On the way to the hospital

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Depression, Hospital, Mental Hospital, Panic Attack, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, insane asylum, psychiatric hospital
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 04:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13563042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: After a suicide attempt, Sam finds himself locked away. He doesn't know what to imagine, but he certainly doesn't imagine that he's going to gain a friend- a fucked-up, hurting, but incredible friend.[Loosely linked to the used- hospital]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1
> 
> This feeling never leaves you alone  
> You pull the trigger on your own  
> You're hiding in your safe place  
> Hiding with your eyes shut tightly  
> On the way to the hospital

Sam groans as his alarm bleeps next to his bed. He throws an arm haphazardly in its general direction, feeling around until he finally hits the snooze button and the room is filled once more with blissful quiet.  
The world is not totally silent, however. He can hear his brother singing in the shower, a terrible rendition of ‘highway to hell’. Outside his window, cars pass, their engines roaring to the tune of the Doppler effect.  
For a few moments, he just listens, with his eyes closed once more.  
Then he remembers, and he sits bolt upright.  
It’s his birthday.  
Looking towards the door, he sees the card that has been pushed under it, with ‘Sammy’ written on it messily. It’s their tradition, a card under the door on birthday mornings. Presents, now that they can afford them, wait until the evening, when both have returned from work.  
But Sam has taken the day off work today. And he won’t be there when the evening rolls languidly into existence.  
Today is his birthday, yes. But today is also the day that he dies. He’s made up his mind. And this way, it’s neater. One day of mourning a year instead of two- his birth and death dates will be the same. It’s convenient. Sam’s world seems to revolve around trying to be convenient in his undoing, these days.

After a few minutes, he hears dean get out of the shower. His brother walks down the hall, then pauses outside Sam’s door.  
“Happy birthday!” He yells, rapping his knuckles on the wood.  
“Thanks,” Sam calls back, trying to sound as though there is a smile on his face.  
He just has to wait until Dean goes out.  
He’s going to have to be quick about it. Charlie, his college flatmate, is coming over at 10. She has a key to their place, and she’s going to find him.  
Sam doesn’t want to put her through that, he really doesn’t, but he doesn’t have a choice. Charlie is supposed to be staying until Dean gets back from work.  
He should never have mentioned that he’d booked the day off. At the time, he’d thought it would be easier. It would make sense of why he wasn’t getting ready to get himself to work in the morning.  
Really, he should’ve just pretended to be going out.  
When he’d told Dean, his brother had immediately suggested that Charlie came to keep him company. She would have to be working, but she worked from home anyway, so it wouldn’t be a problem. And really, there was no argument Sam could think of that wouldn’t raise suspicion.  
So Charlie would find him. And god, it would probably hurt her. But really, he highly doubted that she cared as much as she made out. She was only his friend because they’d been brought to one another by the flat-finding-fates-that-be. He really did care about her, but she probably didn’t about him. Not much, anyway. She’d be okay. She’d get over it.

He heard Dean slam the door shut twenty minutes later almost on the dot. Immediately, he scrambled out of bed. It was 9:02am- his brother was running seriously late, and it could be about to fuck up his plans majorly if he didn’t get a move on.  
He heads to the bathroom. Opening the cabinet, a few bottles and tubs fall out, attacking him.  
“Shit,” he mutters, picking them up and stacking them back into their precarious order.  
Then he reaches for the iron tablets on the top shelf. He’s researched this, and the amount he has, well, they should kill him. There’s always the chance they don’t, of course- he could have brain damage for life... or worse, he could come away almost completely unscathed.  
The next stop is the kitchen. He gets two glasses from the cupboard and fills them to the brim with water. Two glasses, two pill bottles, and two outcomes. Dead or alive. Internally, he cast a prayer to who-knows-who that it would be death that greeted him.  
He headed into the living room next, heading over to the window and drawing the curtains. Then, he sat down.  
With shaking hands, he unscrewed the lid of the first pill bottle and shook some into his palm. He tipped the handful into his mouth and gagged slightly, taking a big gulp of water.  
It took a few sips to get them all down, and then he repeated the action. He soon found a sense of calm within the repetitiveness, even as he began feeling dizzy and sick.  
Without warning, he found himself throwing up uncontrollably. The sick spewed down his pyjama top and onto the chair and the carpet.  
“Oh, crap,” he groans. His hands are shaking more by the second, and he drops the pill bottle.  
He’s sick again now, and his vomit is foamy and foul-smelling.  
“What have I done?” He mutters to himself, suddenly realising that this is terrifying. “Holy crap, w-what have I- Charlie? Anyone! Help!”  
He tries to call out again, but he begins fading out of consciousness, barely gripping on to awareness.  
He’s sick again, and he collapses against the couch, still at last.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It never used to hurt before  
> It isn't funny anymore  
> You're feeling so alone now  
> Funny how you wish some way that you could die at the hospital

It’s the sound of pounding on the door that brings Sam round the first time. As soon as he realises he is conscious, he is throwing up again.  
A muffled shout of his name comes, and suddenly his world is filled with agonising conflict and he wishes he was out cold once more. A part of him just wants the knocking to stop so he can die peacefully, but there is a sliver of hope there, too.  
Then he recognises the voice. Charlie. Shit. She really is going to find him. It wasn’t real until a few moments ago, what he was doing. It was a daydream, a fantasy, a dark hope. Now she’s here and this is truly happening. And he’s failed. God, he’s failed.   
After a few moments of shouting, there’s the sound of the key struggling against the sticky lock of their rain-swollen front door.   
And then she’s in the house. Sam groans involuntarily, a small bubble of sick gathering at the corner of his mouth. He’s nearly slipping under again when Charlie enters the room.  
“Sam, thank god- hey, what’s-” And then she sees the pill bottles on the floor and it clicks into place. “Shit. Shit! No, Sam, no, no, no.”  
“’M sorry,” Sam manages to croak out, and then he falls back under.

When he wakes up, he’s in an ambulance.  
“Charlie…”  
The ambulance workers are on him in an instant, talking to him, asking him things, but he ignores them, focused only on his best friend.  
“Sam!” She’s by his side in an instant. “Okay, what the hell? No, sorry, not what the hell. Shut up, Charlie!”  
“’S okay.”  
“Oh god, why didn’t you tell us?” she asks him, and Sam wants to scream in agony when he sees that she’s crying.  
“Guess I didn’t know how.”  
“I would have listened, Sam.”  
“I’m sorry.”  
“I would have listened,” she repeats, a broken record of heartbreak.  
Sam lets himself tune in to what the workers are saying to him, then, because talking to Charlie is too painful.  
“Sam, did you take anything else? Your friend gave us the iron bottles, but was there anything else, and how much did you take?”  
“Nothing else. Um, a bottle and a half. Don’t know how much that is. Sorry.”  
“Okay, Sam, that’s great. Can you tell us who the president is?”  
“That fucker, Trump.”  
Charlie laughs sadly, and the ambulance workers exchange a grin.  
“Okay, good. We’re nearly at the hospital now. When we get there, we’re getting you straight up to the ward. They’re gonna have to pump your stomach, which might hurt, then we’ll have you on a drip, maybe two to get you all cleaned out inside. When you’re stable, you’re going to need a mental health assessment.”  
He nods, suddenly drowsy once more.  
“No, Sam, please don’t go back to sleep. Oh, God, please!” Charlie pleads, grabbing hold of his hands.  
But Sam can’t help it, he’s falling, falling, falling again…

The next time Sam wakes up, he writhes against the feeling of something pushing against his throat. He gags, and he thinks he’s going to throw up again.  
“Sam, we’re putting a tube down your throat so you can breathe, and then we’re going to put another one in you so that we can get this stuff out of you. We’re gonna flush it through with water, then pull it out. You may feel some discomfort or a cold sensation,” a nurse informs him in a too-loud voice.   
He stayed as still as he could, clenching Charlie’s hand as he felt the push of the second tube. A couple of minutes went by before his eyes started watering, quickly followed by a cold sensation in his stomach. His toes curled at the discomfort and he wiped his eyes roughly.  
When it was over, he was told about the drips again, and then the cannulas were inserted, one in each arm at the crook of his elbow.  
“You’re probably going to feel very tired, Sam. We’re going to give you a couple of hours, and then the assessment team will be with you. I’ll be honest with you, I think you’re going to be going to a hospital for a while.”  
“I’m already in hospital,” he said, confused.  
“I mean a different kind of hospital, Sam. An institution for those with mental health difficulties.”  
“An insane asylum?”   
“We don’t call it that any more,” the nurse replied with a tight smile.  
“I’m going to an insane asylum,” he repeated.

The assessment team, true to her word, came a few hours later. He asked Charlie to stay outside whilst he answered questions. It was all too painful to drag up in front of her.  
When he was done, they took a few minutes to confer, and then he was called back in to see them. This time, he took her with him.  
“Sam, I’m afraid we think that you’re going to benefit from a short stay in a clinic. We’re going to admit you tomorrow if all goes well physically, after you’ve had some time to recover- we’ve called and there’s a space somewhere about half hour away from here. You’re very lucky, usually we have to send patients a little further than that.”  
“Okay…” he replied, trying desperately to process it but finding himself totally unable to.  
“We’re going to leave you now, Sam.”  
When they were gone, he turned to Charlie. When he saw she was crying again, he had to screw his eyes tight to stop his own tears.  
“I… I haven’t called Dean yet. I didn’t know how to say it, I’m sorry. But you, you look like you’re going to be okay, right, so I’ll call him. I, um, I can go pack you a bag now if you want, or Dean can do it. I haven’t even given you your present, Sam!”  
“Happy birthday to me,” he sighed, hugging her. The tubes of the twin drips felt heavy against his skin.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not will you ever rest your head  
> You end up feeling mostly dead  
> Pretending you're the last one  
> Hiding with your eyes shut tightly  
> On the way to the hospital

The team arrives the next morning to take him. He has to endure a physical examination; his brother was stood in the corner with his arms crossed, looking a mixture of concerned and frustrated, and Charlie was in the armchair next to Sam’s bed, trying not to cry.   
“Okay, Sam, you’re not sectioned, so as long as you don’t try to run, you don’t have to go in the cage in the back here. You’re fine on the seats,” the EMT man tells him.  
“Why would I… Try to run?”  
“You’d be surprised, kid” the man tells him. “Your brother and girlfriend here-”  
“Friend.”  
“Huh?”  
“She’s my friend.”  
“Okay. Well, your brother and friend can’t come with you I’m afraid, pal. They can meet us there. You all ready to go? I’m Benny, by the way.”  
“Yeah. Let’s go.”  
The journey is painfully quiet- Sam spends the majority of it looking out the window and regretting every choice he’d made over the last few days. He was going to a freaking asylum- what the hell was everyone there going to be like? Would they be crazy?   
He corrected his thoughts almost as soon as they passed through his mind. He had to be mature about this. He wasn’t crazy, so they wouldn’t be.  
At least, he didn’t think he was.

When they arrive, Sam sits through an hour-long admission process with his best friend clinging on to his arm. It drags like hell, but when they tell him that it’s over and his visitors need to go now, he wishes it was still going on. He doesn’t want to be alone.  
But the nurse – Meg, she said her name was – points to a shoddily made poster depicting the words ‘breakfast: 9, tea: 11, lunch: 1, tea: 3, dinner: 6, tea: 8. Visits: 7-9’.  
So he hugs Charlie goodbye and forces a smile when Dean claps him on the back, and he’s alone.  
The nurse is doing her best to chat to him as she walks him through a tour of the ward. She’s got a big personality, all sarcasm and smart comments, and he thinks that he’ll probably like her at some point, but right now she’s too much and it’s grating.  
His room looks very clinical, with a bed that matches the beds from the hospital he just came from, a wardrobe with no handles and a sloped roof, and an en suite bathroom with no door. He dumps his hold-all on the bed and follows meekly to the ward.  
Then, they head into the communal area. It’s even more clinical there, with pure white walls and lino flooring.   
He scopes out the room, trying not to stare at some of the patients. A dealthy-thin woman gives him an awkward smile and lifts her hand to her face, where a feeding tube is running from her nose. Next to her, a boy who looks no older than 19 has a huge sore on his forehead.  
Then Sam sees that one of the men has stood up and is approaching him. He swallows hard.  
“Soooo! Welcome to the mad house,” the man starts. “I’m Gabriel. Not so cool on the keeping the hospital tags on, by the way. We know why you’re here already.”  
“Um… Sorry? And… How?”  
Gabriel ignores his question.  
“So, the woman you just ogled is Madison. Anorexic, obviously. And that’s Max. Headbanging gives you shit like that nasty ol’ thing. Then we have Ash-”  
“Sup,” Ash says.”  
“And then there’s-”  
“Okay, Gabe, I think that’s enough. Sam’s a tiny bit overwhelmed, and I’m pretty sure nobody wants their life stories laid out to him,” Meg cuts him off.  
“Yeah, fuck off, Gabe,” Max chips in.  
“We’re really not all that bad,” Madison adds.  
Sam feels like he’s going to throw up again.   
It’s all too overwhelming. He doesn’t know what to say, so he settles for asking Gabriel a question.  
“So, uh, Gabe. Why are you here?”  
“Forward. Like it. Always did like the forward dudes,” Gabriel replies with a wink, “Drugs. Yaknow, I figured ‘hey, how can I make my life more shit than it already is?’. Then I thought ‘I know! Let’s stab myself with filthy needles, get an infection, get taken to hospital, get forced into rehab, ‘cept there’s no rehab spaces, and end up here!’. Solid plan, huh?”  
“Wow. That… Sucks.”  
“Yeah, I guess so. So… You’re a suicide attempt, right?”  
“How did you-“  
“There’s a look about you, kid. Kind of… sexy in a depressing way.”  
“No on-ward relationships allowed, Gabe,” Meg says in a bored voice.  
“Don’t need a relationship to admire a fine ass, do we?”  
“Okay, I need to… I need to get out of here,” Sam replies.  
His mind switches in an instant and he’s thinking no longer of being liked and instead paying attention to how to get out, out, now. He remembers how weak the airlock doors looked and runs to the entrance to the ward and slams his fist on the door. But it barely even shakes, so he kicks it, hard. Then again. And again.   
There’s a screeching noise then, and suddenly a group of nurses are charging towards him. Two are grabbing him from behind and pulling him away from the door and he’s screaming and they’re dragging him and-  
He can’t breathe. He can’t fucking breathe. Shit, shit, shit.

When Sam finally calms down, he finds himself in his room without knowing exactly how he got there.  
He didn’t realise it at the time, but it dawned on him now that what happened was a panic attack. He’d been too overwhelmed by all the others, and he’d flipped.   
He just really hoped that this didn’t mean they were going to section him or something. Oh god, what if they did?  
His thoughts are interrupted by someone at the door. He looks up and sees Gabriel and Meg standing there. He really hopes he isn’t in for a lecture, but Meg just gives him a smile and walks away. And Gabriel?  
Gabriel approaches him slowly, like he’s a hurt animal, and wraps him up in a huge, warm hug.  
“It sucks here at first. And that door isn’t going to open unless you’ve got the magic key. Don’t even think about trying to steal one, ‘cause if you touch staff they could get the cops on your ass. You’re just gonna have to stay here and tough it out. But I’m here with you, kid. Okay?”  
Sam nods into Gabriel’s shoulder, beginning to cry.


End file.
